naturally stagnated over the generations. However, apportioning blame is irrelevent in our present extremity. In simple terms, viral proteins were suspended in the water in molecular solutions, and so slipped through our filters.
‘June Besti, in Research, a bright and conceited young thing whose hyper-agoraphobia rendered her unable to join her husband on Procyon V, explained the whole chain of events to me in words of one syllable. Proteins are complex condensation forms of amino acids; amino acids are the basics, and link together to form proteins in peptic chains. Though the known amino acids number only twenty-five, the combinations of proteins they can form is infinite; unfortunately a twenty-sixth amino acid turned up in the water from Procyon V. It served as a vector for the fatal virus.
‘In the tanks, the proteins soon hydrolyzed back into their constituents, as doubtless they would have done on the planet. Meanwhile, the ship’s quota of human beings, livestock and plants absorb many gallons of water per day; their systems build up the amino acids back into proteins, which are transferred to the body cells, where they are used as fuel and, in the combustive processes of metabolism, dissolved back into aminos again. That’s the usual way it happens.
‘The twenty-sixth amino acid disrupts this sequence. It combines into too complex a protein for any system — vegetable or animal — to handle. This is the point at which rigidity of the limbs sets in and the virus proliferates. As Payne explained, the denser peptic linkage may partially be due to the heavier gravity of New Earth; we know very little about the sustained effects of gravity on viral development or free-building molecules.
‘By now, the settlement on the new world must be in as sad a state as we. At least they have the privilege of dying in the open air.
‘22.xii.2221. I had no time to finish yesterday. Today there seems to be all the time in the world. Fourteen more deaths reported this morning by a tired Toynbee. The Nine Day Ague is undisputed master of the ship: my dear Yvonne is its latest victim. I have tucked her in bed but cannot look at her — too terrible. I have ceased to pray.
‘Let me finish what young Besti told me. She was guardedly optimistic about the ultimate survival of a percentage of our population. The bodies of Ague victims are inactive while their internal forces cope with viral depredations; they will eventually break them down if the constitution concerned is elastic enough: “another little virus won’t do us any harm”, Miss Besti pertly quotes. Proteins are present already in all living cells and, after a danger period, another protein, differing but slightly, may be tolerated. The new amino, christened bestine (this bright young creature smoothly informs me!), has been isolated; like leucine and lysine, which are already known, it has an effect on growth — what effect, only long-term research will establish, and I doubt that we have that much time.
‘The short-term results are before us. The plants have mainly adapted to bestine and, once adapted, seem to thrive. The animals, varying with their species, have adapted, though only the pig colony actually seems exhuberant. All survivals, Besti says, may be regarded as mutations — what she calls “low-level mutations”. It seems the heat in Agriculture may have helped them; so I have ordered a ten degree temperature increase from Inboard Power for the whole ship. That is literally the only step we have been able to take to help…
‘It looks as if the more complex the organism, the more difficulty it has in rejecting to the new proteins and viruses. Bad luck on man: in particular, us.
‘24.xii.2221. Toynbee has the Ague. So has Montgomery. They are two of only five new victims this morning. The freak proteins seem to have done the worst of their work. Trying to analyse the reports Sick Bay still heroically send in, I find that the older the person, the better he holds out to begin with and the less chance he stands of surviving once the virus develops. I asked Besti about this when she came, quite voluntarily, to see me (she has made herself I/C Research, and I can only bless her efficiency); she thinks the figures are not significant — the young survive most things better than older people.
‘Little Sheila Pesoli has recovered! Hers was one of the first cases, sixteen long days ago. I went down and saw her; she seems perfectly all right, although quick and nervous in her actions. Temperature still high. Still, she is our first cure.
‘Feel absurdly optimistic about this. If only 100 men and women came through, they might multiply, and their descendants get the ship home. Is there not a lower limit to the number who can avoid extinction? No doubt the answer lurks somewhere in the library, perhaps among those dreary disks compiled by past occupants of this ship…
‘There was a mutiny today, a stupid affair, led by a Sergeant Tugsten of Ship’s Police and “Spud” Murphy, the surviving armourer. They ran amok with the few hand-atomic weapons not landed on P.V., killing six of their companions and causing severe damage amidships. Strangely enough, they weren’t after me! I had them disarmed and thrown into the brig — it will give Bassitt someone to preach at. And all weapons apart from the neurolethea, or “dazers” as they are popularly called, have been collected and destroyed, to prevent further menace to the ship; the “dazers”, acting only on living nervous systems, have no effect on inorganic material.
‘25.xii.2221. Another attempt at mutiny. I was down in Agriculture when it all blew up. As one of the essential ship’s services, the farm must be kept running at all costs. The oxygenators in Hydroponics have been left, as they can manage themselves; one of them, the dry variety mentioned before, has proliferated over the floor and seems almost as if it could sustain itself. While I was looking at it, “Noah” Stover came in with a “dazer”, a lot of worried young women with him. He fired a mild charge at me.
‘When I revived, they had carried me up into the Control Room, there threatening me with death if I did not turn the ship round and head back for New Earth! It took some time to make them understand that the manoeuvre of deflecting the ship through 180 degrees when it is travelling at its present speed of roughly 1328.5 times EV (Earth) would take about five years. Finally, by demonstrating stream factors, I made them understand; then they were so frustrated they were going to kill me anyhow.
‘Who saved me? Not my other officers, I regret to tell, but June Besti, single-handed — my little heroine from Research! So furiously did she rant at them, that they finally slunk off, Noah in the lead. I can hear them now, rampaging round the low-number decks. They’ve got at the liquor supplies.
‘26.xii.2221. We have now what may be termed six complete recoveries, including Sheila. They all have temperatures and act with nervous speed, but claim to feel fit; mercifully, they have no memory of any pain they underwent. Meanwhile, the Ague still claims its victims. Reports from Sick Bay have ceased to come in, but I estimate that under fifty people are still in action. Fifty! Their — my — time of immunity is fast running out. Ultimately, there can be no avoiding the protein pile-up, but since the freak linkages are random factors, some of us dodge a critical congestion in our tissues longer than others.
‘So at least says June Besti. She has been with me again; of course I am grateful fof her help. And I suppose I am lonely. I found myself kissing her passionately; she is physically attractive, and about fifteen years my junior. It was all foolishness on my part. She said — oh, the old argument needs no repeating — she was alone, frightened, we had so little time, why did we not make love together? I dismissed her, my sudden anger an indication of how she tempted me; now I’m sorry I was so abrupt — it was just that I kept thinking of Yvonne, stretched out in dumb suffering a few yards away in the next room.
‘Must arm myself and make some sort of inspection of the ship tomorrow.
‘27.xii.2221. Found two junior officers, John Hall and Margaret Prestellan, to accompany me round ship. Men very orderly. Noah running a nursing service to feed those who come out of the Nine Day Ague. What will the long term repercussions of this catastrophe be?
‘Someone has let Bassitt loose. He is raving mad — and yet compelling. I could almost believe his teaching myself. In this morgue, it is easier to put faith in psycho-analysis than God.
‘We went down to Agriculture. It’s a shambles, the livestock loose among the crops. And the hydroponics! The dry oxygenator mentioned here before has wildly mutated under the bestine influence. It has invaded the corridors near the Hydroponics section, its root system sweeping a supply of soil before it, almost as if the plant had developed an intelligence of its own. With somewhat absurd visions of the thing growing and choking the whole ship, I went up to the Control Room and clicked the button which causes the inter-deck doors to close all along Main Corridor. That should cramp the plant’s style.
‘Frank broke out of his stiffness today. He did not recognize me; I will see him again tomorrow.
‘June was taken with the Ague today. Bright and living June! Prestellan showed her to me — motionless in suffering even as she had predicted. Somehow, treacherously, the sight of her hurt me more than the sight of Yvonne had done. I wish — but what does it matter what I wish? MY TURN NEXT.
